RABBI ISAAC ELCHANAN
SPEKTOR

Rav Isaac Elchanan Spektor

Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor (1817–96) was a revered sage and spokesman for world Jewry.

Born in Rosh, Lithuania, and pronounced an ilui at the age of eight, he was named spiritual leader of Sabelin at 20. With a growing reputation for remarkable erudition, he went on to become rabbi of Baresa, Nishvez, and, in 1851, the larger city of Novohrodak.

In 1864, he was named rabbi of Kovno, Russia, a major Jewish community. Jews throughout the entire world turned to him for halakhic guidance. The Kovner Rav’s writings were highly influential—on such issues as the observance of shmetta (sabbatical year) laws in the fledgling settlements of what was then Palestine and resolution of the tragic plight of agunot.

After his death in 1896, RIETS was named in his memory.

TORAH FROM RIETS

Hear shiurim by our peerless Roshei Yeshiva at YUTorah.org.

Torah and stained glass

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Once every four years, we celebrate those who have achieved rabbinic ordination—the future leadership of the Orthodox Jewish community

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Sunday, March 7, 2010 • 21 Adar 5770

Chag Hasemikhah Dinner 09

SPOTLIGHT ON...

Michael Bleicher
Semikhah student

Michael Bleicher thumbTo quench my thirst for Torah, I sought a yeshiva with rebbeim of varied backgrounds, all of whom stand firmly under the umbrella of our mesorah; a yeshiva that excels in limud hatorah, ahavas hatorah, and shemiras hamitzvos. I found all of that—and more—at RIETS.

The RIETS curriculum prepares me to serve as a rabbi in the modern world by supplementing limudei kodesh with courses that greatly enhance my professional expertise, offering invaluable tools and techniques for leading a kehillah.

TORAH FROM RIETS

Hear shiurim by our peerless Roshei Yeshiva at YUTorah.org.

Torah and stained glass

A TREE OF LIFE

RIETS history

The seeds for the perpetuation of the Jewish heritage in the United States were planted in 1886 by a group of immigrants who founded Yeshiva Eitz Chaim in a tenement on New York's Lower East Side. For these trailblazing rabbis, clothes dealers, and publishers—part of that era's great influx of Eastern European Jewry—the elementary day school at 44 East Broadway safeguarded their children's identity through the study of Torah and the observance of mitzvot.

Critical needs remained—for advanced Torah study, for educated laymen, for rabbis to lead the community in the United States. in 1896, RIETS, the first high-level yeshiva gedolah in the United States, was established in memory of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor of Kovno, Lithuania, one of the outstanding rabbinic scholars of the nineteenth century, who had passed away that year.

Chartered March 20, 1897, by the New York State Board of Regents, RIETS obtained its own building in 1904 at 156 Henry Street. It held its first ordination ceremonies in 1906, with semikhah granted to three graduates.

Dr. Bernard Revel

In 1915, Dr. Bernard Revel (1885-1940) was appointed president and rosh yeshiva of RIETS. It was in that year that Yeshiva Eitz Chaim merged with RIETS under the latter's name. An outstanding talmid hakham like his successors, Dr. Revel was a celebrated ilui at the European yeshivot he attended and, after coming to the United States, he was awarded a Ph.D. by Dropsie College in Philadelphia, the first awarded by that school.

Laying of cornerstone in 1927

Dr. Revel guided the young institution in its development as a center of Torah leadership and was instrumental in RIETS' move in 1929 to its current architecturally splendid Washington Heights home.

After Dr. Revel's death in 1940, Dr. Samuel Belkin (1911-76), a young, prominent RIETS rosh yeshiva and a noted scholar who taught Greek at Yeshiva College, was named dean of the seminary; in 1943, he was elected president of the institution then known as "RIETS and Yeshiva College."

Dr. Belkin studied at the yeshivot of Radin and Mir, and received a Ph.D. from Brown University. Under his stewardship, the institution experienced great physical and academic expansion. Dr. Belkin’s tenure saw the arrival at RIETS of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “the Rav,” a seminal figure in twentieth-century Judaism.

Rav Belkin

On February 20, 1970, RIETS was restructured with its own Board of Trustees and granted a new charter. Dr. Belkin retired as president in 1975, when he was invested as chancellor.

Dr. Norman Lamm (1927– ) was elected president and rosh haYeshiva in 1976—the first who was American-born—following Dr. Belkin’s death that year. A musmakh of RIETS, Dr. Lamm is an alumnus of Yeshiva College and the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, where he earned his Ph.D. He holds the Erna and Jakob Michael Chair in Jewish Philosophy at YU.

Dr. Lamm—a distinguished rabbi, philosopher, educator, and author—has upheld the noble traditions of his predecessors and led RIETS to new levels of scholarship and service to the community.